PERSONALITIES
Main dining room at Akira Back Paris
restaurants as part of room service , including the custom dishes and plates which they are served on . This brings elements of the signature restaurant right into your room . It also helps drive people to the restaurants within the hotel as they then want to seek the full experience . With room service , timeliness is also important since guests do not like to wait long in their room to receive their order .
H : How are you mana��n� t�e new sta�fin� d�lemmas �n your restaurant spaces ? AB : Having operational standards and training practices that have been proven effective all over the world helps keep turnover lower for us . We give a lot of incentives and opportunities for team members to grow both internally and externally . Also , we have great people at all our current locations , so I am able to offer team members promotions and growth opportunities all over the world . New team members see this , and it is spoken to them during the hiring process , which helps us recruit and train the next group of team members and leaders .
H : What food trends are you paying close attention to and what food trends are you acting on now ? AB : One trend that is not new but is becoming popular again is table side dishes and cooking at customer ’ s table . We have a high-end Korean BBQ steakhouse
called ABSteak which has been doing this for years with tableside grilling . Customers love to be a part of the cooking experience . Also , an unfortunate trend which everyone is keeping track of and trying to best manage is inflation . The cost of food is going up , so you need to make sure your recipes and ingredients are of the proper quality and level of price point for customers .
H : What is your take on alternative meat , veganism , and other food and consumer-related trends ? AB : I love it . It is another way for a chef to be creative in the kitchen while also delivering on customer needs . But I did not always feel this way . It is a challenge for kitchens to execute as not everyone has these dietary constraints . I started to enjoy cooking and experimenting with these types of foods once I started working in countries with religious beliefs that did not allow certain meats as well as researching and understanding the health benefits of this with more general customers desiring it on the menu .
H : How do hotels best develop and operate pop-ups ? AB : Pop-ups are a great way for a hotel to utilize restaurant space that isn ’ t currently being used where they can bring in a brand to operate and offer restaurant cuisine which normally they cannot . Or popups can be great ways during a busy season in certain
58 hotelsmag . com October 2022